Electricity
by Your Angel of Music
Summary: Christian and Syed thought that they had moved on - but one touch can destroy even the most carefully constructed of walls. Set during 24/12/2011, as an attempt to imagine what we did not see. Repressed feelings and sexual tensions abound!


**Title: **Electricity  
><strong>Author: <strong>MercuryPheonix (YourAngeOfMusic)  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> Set during episode that aired 24/12/2011

**Summary:** Christian and Syed thought that they had moved on - but one touch can destroy even the most carefully constructed of walls.

**Author's Note:** This is set during the Christmas Eve episode. We were shown a scene in which Amira interrupted Christian and Syed on the bed: they looked as though they were about the start a conversation, about to open their hearts. The thing that got me was the way that Syed had his elbow rested lightly on Christian's knee and Christian was holding the tips of Syed's fingers, almost tentatively. I decided, at that moment, that I _had_ to explore what had happened between them in between their last scene and Amira's interruption. This is being left as 'unfinished' for a good reason - you all know that I am more inclined towards delving into Christian psyche, as he is a character I really feel a strong affiliation with (although I do adore Syed with all my heart), but I may try to do this whole thing from Syed's first person POV as well. Just bear with me on that one. I hope you 'enjoy'.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own EastEnders, Christian, Syed or any of the affiliated characters; they belong to the BBC and their respective creators. I am making no profit from this. Also, the line towards the end of the fiction (regarding the difference between 'wanting' and 'longing') refers to an episode of _Queer as Folk: USA_, which also belongs to its creators.

* * *

><p>x<p>

**Electricity**

x

It's an instinctive thing. The moment I see that flash of ugly silver slid around his finger, it's like my brain isn't connected to the tendons in my hand. I reach out. I can't help it. And, the moment the friction of his skin burns against my own, I know I have done the wrong thing.

It's like sticking my whole hand inside a plug socket – a bolt of lightening shoots up my wrist, catching me just beneath my ribs. I don't quite register the words that leave my lips, but I know it's something suitably sarcastic for the situation: something about predictability and closets, or something else that at least fits my current mood. I'm a little too distracted to sort my thoughts out properly - because it's a strange thing, this bubbling concoction, the spark of electricity in his hand meeting the acidic bile of the thing that defiles it, pushing all the oxygen away from my brain.

Shit.

I thought I didn't care. I thought I was over it. I really believed that I was – I was convinced of it. Four weeks of drowning my sorrows - in booze and bodies - in a grotty rented flat in South London, before spontaneously spending the last of my savings on a two week trip to the Canaries. And by the end, all that hurt had drowned somewhat in the sea of sun and sea and tans (mine and others). It was like the sun did something to me, releasing all the endorphins that I thought I'd never rediscover. And I was happy. Or as close to it as I ever thought I'd get.

Even seeing him for the fist time, standing in the doorway with _her_, I thought I'd cracked it. I could deal with this. I didn't care anymore. At least, not enough for it to hurt like the punch in the gut it had been three weeks ago. I really thought: _I can do this_.

I shouldn't have touched.

It's like someone's taken a wrecking ball to my carefully constructed wall. That look in his eyes smashes into me like hunk of blunt metal, dragging down my skin and letting me spill to the floor in a messy pile of blood and bones and soul.

I see him take the ring from his finger, sliding it between his thumb and forefinger and batting it nervously between the pads. I don't know quite what that does to me, but I know that my voice softens in my throat, my hand coming up instinctively and my knuckles pressing against his chest. It's like there's nothing between my skin and his heart, the gentle thrumming beating up my arm and chiselling into my very soul.

Crap, I don't want to feel this. I don't want it. And he's looking at me, now, he's looking at me in a way that isn't quite the way he used to look at me before – he used to look at me like I was the centre of his universe, the ball of gravity pulling every atom of him swirling inwards. God, I think I miss that. I think. I didn't miss it ten minutes ago. Did I? Maybe I did. Maybe I just locked it away. I am good at that, after all. I can't tell where the mask ends and the skin begins most of the time.

How pathetic is that, that I can't even read myself anymore? I don't know who I am. I thought I knew - a few months ago, I thought I'd finally stopped the stupid fucking wandering I'd be doing ever since Mum and Dad first cut me off - but now I don't know anymore. Maybe Christian Clarke was always destined to wander. Maybe I should never have even tried to settle down in the first place. It was never going to end well.

They always leave me in the end. That's not self-pitying, it's just the truth. Or they always will leave me, somewhere down the line. At the end of the day, maybe it's better that I escape before they can hurt me. Then I'll always have the upper hand. Then it won't hurt quite so much.

The last time I opened my heart, the last moment I reached out and tried to settle myself, it all went wrong. She left me - Mum - just when things were going okay. Just when I thought 'this is finally over' – she upped and left. Okay, it was a different kind of leaving to the way we left each other last time, but it still hurt. It was like being abandoned all over again, left in a leaky basket to hurtle down a long and winding river.

I was a thirty-seven year old man...who just wanted his Mum. It was pathetic.

I think that was the that moment I told myself 'never again'. From then onwards, I was going to be the one doing the leaving. No one would leave me. Not again.

But then Syed happened. He happened. He turned my world upside down. He made me forget promises that I hadn't even realised I was making.

And I thought, then, that I'd never leave.

Talk about breaking promises, eh?

I drop my hand from his heart, flexing my fingers like I've been burned. His head droops onto his chest, his foot scuffing against the door whilst his hand comes up to fiddle with the hair that brushes the back of his neck. I remember how that used to feel – the whisper of hair at my fingertips, sweeping through the gaps in my fingers, tingling against my palm. It's not mine anymore. I gave up that right.

"Syed…" I don't know what I'm going to say. '_Don't leave'_ sounds like the right thing in my head – at least, that's what's trying to force its way between my lips. Only, I didn't listen to that last time; so why the hell should he pay a damned ounce of attention to that? "…Sy…"

"Christian," he raises his head again, pursing his lips in that way that always used to make my heart melt. "Just don't. You walked out, don't forget that. I just moved on."

He steps past me, his shoulder just brushing against my arm – there it is, that shock of something that I don't want to feel; but, at the same time, that I never want to _stop _feeling – as he moves into the spare bedroom.

"How long are you staying for?" his words are clipped, cold, clinical even, but the centre of each word dips a little – as if he's dragging them out of his stomach. It makes me want to hug him. Or run away. I can't decide which one.

"Dunno," I shove my hands into my pockets as I follow him into the room. "I'll see how it plays out, I guess. Not too long."

"Yeah," he's got his hands on my bag (why is he doing that?), dragging out the rest of the clothes and dumping them on the bed. "Because you're good at moving on like that."

_Ouch_. That hurts. It's deserved, I guess - but I can feel myself bristle.

"Yeah," my shoulder straighten, the words bolting from me like a cannonball. "It's really not that hard."

_Ouch_. I can see that hurt him. And a large part of me still cares. _Shit_.

He swallows back whatever retort he had, his fingers stumbling ever so slightly over the zip of the bag as he delves into one of the inner pockets. I step forward without thinking, reaching out towards his trembling hand.

"You don't have to…here…let me…" out fingers catch against one another clumsily – we both freeze, as if the jolt of electricity binds us together – he breathes in, looks up, catches my eye for a brief, painful, glorious moment before the shock of it jerks him away.

He turns his back on me, pressing his hands against his face before all but flinging himself down onto the bed – he's cradling his fingers, as though the skin that brushed against mind is singed.

"Why did you have to come back?" his head is in his hands now, his whole body folded almost in two. "Why couldn't you have just stayed away? I didn't need…I mean…I don't _want_…"

I'm beginning to wish I hadn't, either. It all felt so much…easier when I wasn't seeing him, hearing him, _touching_ him…

I realise suddenly that I'm towering over him, my shoulders up defensively, my whole body casting a heavy shadow over his vulnerable frame. I don't like it.

I don't want to do it. To sit next to him, to get even closer…but it's better than standing over him, than _watching_ him struggle. I'd rather be at his own level, for this, whatever it is. There's no upper hand here, just a towering presence that really isn't doing me any favours – or making me feel very good about myself at all.

Or making him feel good. But I didn't just think that. Because I don't care. At all. Nope.

_Shit!_

I stop arguing myself around in mental circles and sit down next to him. Our elbows brush ever so gently. _Crackle_. For _fucks_ sake. I feel like we're subconsciously doing it on purpose now – it's like a glorious pain that we just _have_ to get more of. I want it stop, but, at the same time, I never want it to end. I don't know whether he feels the same; but I see him close his eyes for a fraction of a second longer than a blink.

"Sy…"

"Don't call me that."

I close my eyes, trying to lock the door to familiarity in my brain and keep this as businesslike as possible.

Which is an odd thing, here, on our bed, where our relationship is as un-_businesslike_ as it could possibly be.

_Was_.

Stop it, Clarke. Don't you go there. But I can't help it.

"Syed…" I want to reach out and grab his hand; but, for now, I settle with the subtle torture of our brushing elbows. "Pakistan…you can't…"

"Why not?" he moves his elbow away – I feel the loss like someone's just ripped out one of my kidneys. "Why do you even care?"

"I…" I was going to say 'I don't', but I realise, at that moment, that we're beyond that now. "I mean…oh, you know…"

"No, I don't know," he twitches like he's going to look at me, but he catches himself just in time. "I'm moving out there to set up a business. There's nothing wrong with that.'

"But Pakistan? Sy…" I stop, catch myself. "Syed…" I can't believe I'm even saying this, but it's like the words are bubbling lava in my throat. "There are gays in Pakistan who are fighting to get _out_, and you're trying to get _in_? You'll have to hide again. You can't. You just can't. I thought we were passed this. And wearing your ring?"

"You can't tell me what to do," this time he does round on me, fixing me with the fiercest glare he can muster. "You lost that right when you walked out on me."

He's right, of course. But I've never let that stop me before. The lava in my throat begans to spit, the flames licking at my gums and spewing from my mouth.

"You're acting like I enjoyed walking out on you."

"Didn't you?"

"No," I don't know whether I want to hit him or kiss him. "It's the hardest thing I've ever done - and you _know_ it was. I am _not_ the bad guy here."

He makes a noise that sounds somewhere between a scoff and a sob - it's not much, but it's enough to drag more words out of me, yanking them almost from the very pit of my soul.

"Getting in that taxi and shutting the door behind me, it was like someone was ripping out my heart. But I had to do it. I couldn't...I didn't...I just couldn't _do_ it, anymore. I wish it hadn't come to that, but it did. What else was I supposed to do?"

Silence falls like a banket of treacle around us, wrapping us in a sticky, viscous prison.

"You could have stayed. You could have fought for us. _That's_ what you could have done."

"Syed, I'm tired of fighting."

"Well, you shouldn't be," there's a watery shimmer gathering in the corner of his eye; I fight back the part of me that wants to reach out and wipe it away. "We could have sorted it out, if you'd stayed. We could have worked it out. We just needed time - but, as usual, you were too impatient."

I open my mouth to interrupt, but he shoots me down with a look. It isn't a glare. It's a look that tells me that I have no right to argue - and I know, at that moment, that I gave up that right. Someone said once that the different between wanting and longing is that, for it to be longing, it has to _hurt_. And I more than want to go back in time and get my arse out of that taxi - I _long_ for it.

"Well, this time I've been impatient. I've moved on. We set up a business. A whole new future, a new chance, a new _life_. A new start. For _me_. What's wrong with that? Did you just expect me to sit around moping?"

Air whistles past my teeth as I suck in hard.

"No."

"Is that why you came back? You thought you could just swan back in here, and I'd…what?...fall at your feet? I'm not a damsel in distress and I don't need you to save me, Christian."

He makes to leave, to put a final full stop to this conversation forever – but my hand shoots out of its own accord, catching at his. It's not a proper hand-hold – my grip only pinches the tips of his fingers – but his body falls back almost immediately, slack, his chest huddled over his knees. But he doesn't fight it. The warmth of the electricity surges through us…his arm loosens, elbow resting on my knee like it's the most natural thing in the world…and I think to myself _why did I ever ever ever want to lose this feeling?_

I can feel my heart contorting slightly in my chest, refitting itself into a familiar old shape.

It's a little bit like coming home.

I can see the ring lying on the floor where it has rolled from his grasp, sitting silently, harmlessly just in the corner of my peripheral vision. The pressure between my fingers increases a little. I can feel his hand twitch, almost as if its burrowing into my touch.

Suddenly, it's like a door has been opened in my brain. I want to beg, and plead, and let the tears flow, and apologise, and scream, and shout, and demand his apology. I want to hold him here forever, this light touch setting fire to the tips of our souls, and make sure that nothing is left hidden or unsaid between us again. Maybe I'll get hurt, but for that brief moment, I don't care. I don't care.

I just want him. I never stopped wanting him. I know, now, that I was just kidding myself. The feelings never went away. I'm just bloody good at hiding them. But I promise myself now, as I open my mouth to speak, that I will never, _ever_…

The door suddenly slams…a _clippety clop_ echoes across the floor…a voice sings out, drilling into my ear drums.

And, with that, I feel my heart curling back in on itself. It's like the death knoll, ringing out to signal the murder of something special. This is my war, and I haven't got the energy to fight it. How can I fight what she has? I don't even protest as he stands up; his hand falls from my grasp, both of us letting go at the same time. The warm electricity that sparked though every synapse is cut; the light goes out somewhere in my soul.

Suddenly, I _do_ care. I care if I get hurt. I care - because they will always leave me. _He _was always going to leave me – I was never going to be able to hold onto him in the face of everything that stood against us. We went through so much; those wounds were never going to heal. They were always going to twinge, to ache...to _fester_. I'm tired of fighting. I don't have anything left in me. I'm the old one: why am I the one wearing myself out with fighting? I want him so much, so _very_ much, but I can never have him. I knew this, eighteen months ago, before I started fooling myself that maybe miracles could happen. And I know this now, as he gets up and leaves the room.

I can feel something solidifying in my rib cage. It weighs me down, but at least it protects what's in there.

As I haul myself from the bed, I kick the ring across the floor and wipe the last remnants of fire from my fingers.

Then I readjust my mask, and I carry on.

x

**Fin**

* * *

><p>Thank you for reading! I hope that I managed to capture a realistic internal monologue for Christian, as well as offering a plausible scenario for what we didn't see. If you have any comments or criticism, I would encourage you to leave them here, as they really do help me to improve as a writer. If you'd rather not, however, then keep on lurking my lovely lurkers!<p> 


End file.
